Recording and receiving voice mail with freeform bookmarks

ABSTRACT

Methods, systems, computer program products, and methods of doing business by providing bookmarks for voice mail messages in order to facilitate improved navigation thereof. A bookmark is preferably conveyed by the caller leaving a voice mail message to indicate information such as a change in the topic of the message, or a particular important passage within the message, or perhaps to identify some information for special treatment (such as a telephone number and time of day at which the call can be returned). Once the message has been bookmarked, the listener can navigate the message more efficiently (for example, by listening to a few seconds of each topic and then skipping to the next topic, or by listening only to the special information) and can also perform actions on parts of the voice mail message (such as forwarding only a selected segment to a third party, while keeping the remainder of the message confidential). Optionally, audio cues may be rendered with the voice mail message as it is played to the listener, where audio cues are sounds that are either “incorporated in” with the audio rendering as a separate (background) audio stream or inserted in-line within the message. (For example, audio cues may change to signify that the bookmarked topics of the message change, or many announce the type of bookmark associated with an upcoming audio message segment).

RELATED INVENTIONS

[0001] The present invention is related to the followingcommonly-assigned U.S. Patents, both of which were filed concurrentlyherewith and are hereby incorporated herein by reference: U.S. ______(Ser. No. 09/______), entitled “Selectable Audio and Mixed BackgroundSound for Voice Messaging System”, and U.S. ______ (Ser. No. 09/______),entitled “Audio Renderings for Expressing Non-Audio Nuances”.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] 1. Field of the Invention

[0003] The present invention relates to a computer system, and dealsmore particularly with methods, systems, computer program products, andmethods of doing business by providing bookmarks for voice mail messagesin order to facilitate improved navigation and processing thereof.

[0004] 2. Description of the Related Art

[0005] Face-to-face communication between people involves many parallelcommunication paths. We derive information from body language, fromwords, from intonation, from facial expressions, from the distancebetween our bodies, and so forth. Distance communication, such as phonecalls, e-mail exchange, and voice mail, on the other hand, involves onlya few of these communication paths. Users may therefore have to takeextra actions (which may or may not be successful) if they wish to tryto overcome the limitations so imposed.

[0006] Distance communicating is becoming more prevalent in our society.Voice mail systems became widely used in years past, and in more recentyears electronic mail systems have become common, with the popularityand pervasiveness of e-mail continuing to grow. When communicating bye-mail, message creators often try to overcome the limitations ofdistance communications by techniques such as using different fontsizes, colors, emoticons (i.e. combinations of text symbols which bear aresemblance to facial expressions), and so forth to express non-textinformation. This non-text information includes emphasis, emotion,irony, etc. When communicating in person, the speaker can use changes inbody language to indicate a change in subject. In e-mail messages, theparagraph structure and use of bolding and italics gives clues as to thenumber and importance of topics. Thus, e-mail users try to overcome thelimitations of distance communications by using visual clues for bothsemantic and contextual meaning. Further, visual clues such as paragraphdistinctions are perceivable as soon as the page is displayed, providinga “broadside” perception of the message.

[0007] Voice mail has a different set of problems. While the recipienthas the benefit of the nuances available through voice, the recipientdoes not have the advantages of the other parallel forms ofcommunication which are available in person. Unlike e-mail, with voicemail the recipient does not have the advantage of broadside perceptionof the message. Thus, in a voice mail message, it may be difficult forthe listener to appreciate when one topic has ended and another hasbegun. Additionally, voice mail users listening to their messages from atelephone do not have the ability to navigate within the stored voicemail in a controlled fashion. The voice mail recipient is hampered inthe retrieval of, and subsequent actions on, the message due to theinability to act on parts of the voice mail message, as can be done withe-mail messages. (While some existing voice mail systems allow thelistener to speed up the message, or skip the message, none are known tothe present inventors which allow the originator of the message tospecify where the topics lie, or which enable use of such identifiedtopics for actions by the listener.)

[0008] Accordingly, what is needed is a technique that alleviates theseproblems in distance communications, providing a more flexible and moreproductive way for people to communicate using voice mail messages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0009] An object of the present invention is to provide a technique thatalleviates disadvantages in distance communications.

[0010] Another object of the present invention is to provide thistechnique by enabling a more flexible and more productive way for peopleto communicate using voice mail messages.

[0011] A further object of the present invention is to provide theseadvantages by augmenting a voice mail message with bookmarks.

[0012] Still another object of the present invention is to provide theseadvantages by using the bookmarks to navigate stored voice mail messagesmore efficiently.

[0013] Yet another object of the present invention is to provide theseadvantages by using the bookmarks to enable acting upon partial voicemail messages.

[0014] Yet another object of the present invention is to provide newmethods of doing business, whereby enhanced voice mail systems can beprovided to end-users, and/or features of existing systems can beimproved.

[0015] Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be setforth in part in the description and in the drawings which follow and,in part, will be obvious from the description or may be learned bypractice of the invention.

[0016] To achieve the foregoing objects, and in accordance with thepurpose of the invention as broadly described herein, in a first aspectthe present invention provides methods, systems, computer programproducts, and methods of doing business by providing bookmarks in voicemail messages.

[0017] This technique comprises providing one or more bookmarks for avoice mail message left by a caller in order to create a bookmarkedmessage. It may also comprise creating the resulting bookmarked message,and playing the bookmarked message to a listener.

[0018] The bookmarks may be used for a number of different purposes,including but not limited to: segmenting the voice mail messageaccording to one or more topics; marking one or more segments as havingone or more different degrees of importance (in which case a defaultdegree of importance may be associated with segments not otherwisemarked); identifying one or more special types of information in thevoice mail message (such as a callback telephone number for the caller;a callback time and/or date to use when responding to the voice mailmessage); identifying the caller's name; providing a Uniform ResourceLocator or an e-mail address; and providing a protection orconfidentiality indicator for the message or some portion thereof

[0019] The bookmarks may be used to navigate from one topic or segmentof the voice mail message to another, and/or to perform actionsselectively on one or more segments, where the actions include, but arenot limited to: saving; deleting; forwarding; skipping; listening; orrepeating playback of segments; and/or marking a selected segment asprotected or confidential (for example, prior to forwarding the segmentto another party).

[0020] The bookmarks may also be used to navigate among segments of thevoice mail message having one or more of the different degrees ofimportance, and/or to perform actions (of the type just described)selectively on one or more of these segments.

[0021] Similarly, the bookmarks may be used to navigate to one or moreof the special types of information in the voice mail message, and/or toselectively perform actions (of the type described above) on one or moreof these special types of information. When one of the special types ofinformation is a Uniform Resource Locator, then one of the actions maycomprise establishing a connection to that URL.

[0022] In some embodiments, the bookmarks and the voice mail message maybe stored separately; in other embodiments, they may be stored in anintermingled manner. (Or, selected types of the bookmarks may beseparately stored, while others are intermingled.) The number ofbookmarked topics in the voice mail message may be announced to alistener. Similarly, the number of different degrees of importance(and/or the number of segments in these different degrees of importance)may be announced, as may the number of special types of information.

[0023] Optionally, particular ones of the special types of informationmay be treated as required, in which case the caller may be prompted toprovide input for each required one for which no bookmark is otherwiseprovided.

[0024] As another option, one or more audio cues may be associated withone or more of the bookmarks. In this case, the technique may furthercomprise playing the bookmarked message to a listener while also playingthe associated audio cues along with respective portions (e.g. segmentsand/or special indicators) of the voice mail message which correspond tothe bookmarks. The audio cues may be incorporated in with the respectiveportions of the voice mail message, or may be played in-line (i.e.between the portions).

[0025] The present invention will now be described with reference to thefollowing drawings, in which like reference numbers denote the sameelement throughout.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0026]FIG. 1 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of how a callermay enhance his or her voice mail message by providing bookmarks,according to preferred embodiments of the present invention;

[0027]FIGS. 2A through 2D provide a flowchart illustrating logic thatmay be used to implement preferred embodiments of the voice mailplayback features of the present invention;

[0028]FIGS. 3A through 3D are tables showing examples of command choicesthat may be provided to a listener for use in navigating the enhancedvoice mail messages of the present invention;

[0029]FIG. 4 provides a histogram illustrating message segmenting, asdefined by the present invention; and

[0030]FIGS. 5A through 5G depict examples of data structures that may beused to facilitate implementation of preferred embodiments of thepresent invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0031] The present invention improves distance communications which usevoice mail messages, providing a more flexible and more efficient voicemail system. Use of freeform bookmarks (i.e. bookmarks that may beprovided anywhere within a voice mail message) in voice mail messages asdisclosed herein enables disambiguating topics during the voicemessages. Further, it allows “skimming” of voice mail analogous to areader skimming the contents of an e-mail message. The disclosedtechniques enable rapid navigation of voice mail messages from anordinary, non-screen telephone, and rapid retrieval of information suchas phone numbers or special text from the midst of a voice mail message.

[0032] The present invention enables new voice mail features for playingback stored messages. Once segments of voice mail messages have beendelineated using bookmarks, the segments can be acted upon individuallyby the listener. In general, any action that can be taken on a completevoice mail message in the prior art can now be taken on one or moresegments of a voice mail message. By bookmarking segments of voice mailmessages, the messages become selectively navigable. Thus, the listenermay choose to listen to all of her voice mail messages serially (as inthe prior art), or can listen to a few seconds of each topic within amessage and then skip to the next as necessary using features of thepresent invention.

[0033] With the teachings of the present invention, a number of actionsare now supported on partial voice mail messages. For example, thelistener can delete or forward partial voice mail messages. This lattercapability enables the pertinent part of a message to be forwarded,while allowing the listener to retain privacy on the remainder of themessage. A listener may choose a save action on a partial voice mailmessage, saving only the segments which she wishes to keep. Storagecapacity in voice mail systems is often limited, and thus this selectivesaving technique may enable the listener to better manage her allottedstorage. Or, the listener may choose to repeat the playback ofindividual segments, or to completely skip over segments, etc. Theability to repeat a segment is particularly useful when a listener haslistened to a stored voice mail message but has missed noting importantinformation in the caller's message; if that information is bookmarked,the listener may now navigate to it much more efficiently and easilythan using the prior art technique of replaying the entire message. Touse these partial voice mail message features, at the end or perhaps thebeginning of hearing a bookmarked segment, the listener can elect toforward only the previous segment or the upcoming segment to a thirdparty; or to delete, save, or replay the segment; and so forth. Ratherthan selecting such actions while hearing a voice mail message segment,the listener may alternatively choose such actions selectively, using(e.g.) a numeric identifier of the applicable message segment(s).

[0034] A number of different embodiments of the present invention may beimplemented using the teachings disclosed herein. Preferred ones ofthese embodiments, illustrating the advantageous features of the presentinvention, will now be described.

[0035] The present invention may be used to enhance voice mail messagesand voice mail systems by explicitly identifying various types ofinformation in a voice mail message. Speakers tend to be less precise inoral speech than they are in written communications. This can beinefficient when communicating using voice mail. When leaving a message,the present invention enables the speaker to disambiguate topics of hisvoice message. A “keyed alert sequence” (“KAS”), which preferablycomprises one or more signals entered by the user from his telephoneequipment, is used to signal to the VMS that a bookmark of the voicemail message should be created. For example, the KAS signal may begenerated by the caller pressing keys or buttons on his telephone totransmit dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones. Or, selections may bemade in any other available manner. For example, the user may speak acommand or command sequence that will be interpreted by a voicerecognition process (which may be part of the caller's equipment, orpart of the receiving voice mail system) and used as a KAS to generate abookmark. Alternatively, the caller may have a telephone with a displayscreen (such as a screen phone or a Web-enabled cellular phone) fromwhich options can be selected, including a touch-sensitive display, andmay use this means to send a signal to the voice mail system(hereinafter, “VMS”). The caller's telephone equipment may also beconfigured or otherwise adapted to automatically transmit certain typesof information to the VMS, such as the caller's name and/or preferredcallback telephone number, without requiring concurrent interventionfrom the caller. The present invention discloses use of these types ofinformation as “special indicators” or “special information” which maybe used to enhance voice mail messages.

[0036] The caller may use a KAS to create a bookmark within his messagefor a number of different reasons. As one example, a KAS may betransmitted to indicate that the speaker is now changing topics. Bybookmarking the topics within a stored voice mail message, a broadsideperspective of the stored voice message may be provided to the messagelistener, as will be described in more detail below, enabling thelistener to gain a better understanding of the message and its content.In a message covering multiple topics, the speaker may pause after hehas spoken about one topic, generate the KAS (e.g. by pressing the “*”button on his phone), and continue speaking about a new topic.

[0037] As another example, the caller may enter a KAS during his messageto bookmark a particularly important passage or perhaps just a passagethat the speaker wishes to emphasize for some reason. In this usage, thespeaker may generate the appropriate alert before (or perhaps after)communicating the important information. In a message with passages ofvarying importance, a scale such as 1 to 5 may be used, and the speakermay associate the appropriate importance indicator with a segment of hismessage (e.g. by keying a sequence such as “#3” or “***” to mark thesegment as being of importance level 3). Or, a single level ofimportance indicator may be supported alternatively, where it is assumedthat all of the spoken message is of the same (default) importance untilthe speaker provides a KAS to distinguish a particular passage. As anexample of using this approach, a voice command may be given such as“important passage begin” as the caller begins speaking an importantpassage, and then “important passage end” may be spoken after theimportant passage has been communicated to the VMS.

[0038] Another example of advantageous use of KAS indicators as voicemail bookmarks is in highlighting special information (such as a phonenumber or an identifier the listener may need to record, or an addresssuch as an e-mail address or a Uniform Resource Locator or “URL”) in avoice mail message. By bookmarking the information, the listener cannavigate directly to the information he needs or can have it played backto him, without having to hear the entire message again. The types ofspecial information supported may be predefined in a particularimplementation, or a number of different indicators may alternatively beprovided without having a fixed interpretation thereof. In the formercase, the implementation may be adapted to storing a callback phonenumber after the caller provides a KAS such as “*1” and a callback timeand/or date after the caller presses “*2”, or a URL when the callerpresses “#URL”, for example. (A “callback” phone number, as the term isused herein, is a phone number which this caller wishes the listener touse when responding to this voice mail message, and which may differfrom the number of the telephone from which the caller is leaving hermessage.) This approach enables the VMS to explicitly inform thelistener of what types of special information have been stored for aparticular voice mail message, as well as enabling separate rendering ofthat information to the listener. Furthermore, the VMS may optionally beadapted to know which of the special topics (if any) is consideredrequired or preferred information, and may prompt the caller to providethis information. When special indicators are provided without a fixedinterpretation, the semantic interpretation of the special indicatorsmay perhaps be known only to the caller and the listener, with the VMSenabling announcement, separate playback, and/or navigation to thespecial information requested by the user. If URLs are supported as atype of special indicator, embodiments of the present invention mayoptionally provide a feature for automatically establishing a connectionto that URL for the listener.

[0039] An implementation of the present invention may use KAS indicatorsfor creating voice mail bookmarks for any of the above-describedfunctions (as well as functions which will be obvious once the teachingsdisclosed herein are known) separately or in combination(s).

[0040] In one embodiment, the KAS indicator(s) may be recorded in-lineas part of the audio stream (i.e. intermingled within the audio stream).In an alternative embodiment, KAS detection causes the development ofmetadata (such as an array of codes or pointers) which is associatedwith the audio stream. These techniques enable the VMS and listener toefficiently navigate the recorded message, and to perform actionsselectively on portions of the message. Or, a combination of thesetechniques may be used. The storage of KAS indicators is described inmore detail below, with reference to the sample data structures in FIGS.5A through 5G.

[0041] Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which provides an example thatillustrates how a caller may enhance her voice mail message by providingone or more bookmarks to (1) indicate when the topic of her spokenmessage changes and (2) indicate when she is providing specialinformation such as her callback phone number. As shown in FIG. 1, thecaller 100 dials a number (which may be the called party's number, orperhaps a voice mail service to which the called party subscribes), asshown at 102. The call is answered 103 by the VMS 101, and the messagerecording starts 104. Preferably, the caller begins speaking 105 andprovides 106 a KAS at some (arbitrary) call-specific point within thecall. (Alternatively, the caller may choose to provide a KAS at thebeginning of the call to mark the beginning of her first topic beforespeaking.) The character “*” is shown in FIG. 1 as the “change topic”KAS, for purposes of illustration and not of limitation. After receivingthe KAS which the caller provided at 106, the VMS internally identifies107 that a new topic has started for this voice mail message. Thisinternal identification may comprise segmenting the voice mail messagesuch that a change-topic bookmark can be associated with the new segmentin metadata. Or, the KAS or an interpretation thereof may be insertedin-line within the stored message. (For example, a phrase “new topic”may be programmatically spoken into the recorded message. Thisprogrammatic insertion may be performed by the VMS, or by the caller'sphone equipment or even by the telephone company as the message is beingtransmitted to the VMS.) In the preferred embodiment, an entry iscreated in metadata associated with the message. A data structure of thetype depicted in FIGS. 5A-5G may be used for these approaches. (Notethat if DTMF tones are used for providing the KAS, the receiving VMSpreferably does not store the sound of the DTMF tones for the calledparty to hear, but rather interprets them and may store them for furtherprogrammatic processing.)

[0042] The caller then continues speaking the new topic of her voicemessage (108), which the VMS continues to record. For purposes ofillustration, it is assumed that the VMS in FIG. 1 supports bothchange-topic bookmarks and special indicators, and that this user wishesto explicitly indicate information for special treatment, such as aphone number. At some point during her spoken message, the caller thusprovides a KAS such as “#”, as shown at 109, to indicate that she is nowproviding a particular type of special information (indicated in theexample as a phone number). In some embodiments, a special or firstcharacter such as “#” may indicate that special information is beingentered, while an additional character or characters is then provided(e.g. comprising a sequence such as “#11”) to identify which specialindicator this is. The VMS receives the KAS indicator, and internallyidentifies 110 that a phone number is about to be entered. The callerthen keys in or speaks the phone number 111, after which she preferablyprovides another KAS—which may be a special KAS defined to signal theVMS of the end of the special information, or which may be a new topicindicator (or another special indicator), as shown in the example at112. (Alternatively, in some cases the VMS may be adapted to know whenthe special information is complete. For example, provision of afixed-length special message may be supported. In such cases, it is notnecessary to provide an explicit KAS to signify the end of the specialinformation.)

[0043] Upon receiving the change-topic KAS provided at 112, the VMSinternally identifies 113 the start of the new topic, and the callerbegins speaking 114 the information for that new topic. This process ofchanging topics and/or providing special information may be repeated anumber of times, if desired. When the caller's message is complete, shehangs up 115, and the VMS stops recording this voice mail message, asshown at 116.

[0044] Note that while the example scenario provided in FIG. 1 refers touse of special symbols and numbers from the caller's telephone, this isfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation. Alternatively, anysuitable technique for supplying input from the caller, including use ofvoice recognition by the receiving VMS to interpret the caller's spokenselection(s) or command(s), may be used instead. Furthermore, aparticular implementation of the present invention may choose to supporta combination of techniques for input.

[0045] While not illustrated in FIG. 1, a particular receiving VMS maychoose to prompt a caller to provide special information such as thecallback number or the caller's name. In this case, the prompting mayoccur by a spoken request from the VMS, or by transmitting indicators ofanother form. Optionally, at 107, 110, and 113, the VMS may provideconfirmation to the caller that the KAS tones have been received. Thisconfirmation may be a tone, spoken message, visual display, or otherindication. It will be obvious to one of skill in the art how FIG. 1 maybe adapted to support either or both of these alternative approaches.

[0046] FIGS. 2A-2D provide a flowchart illustrating logic that may beused to implement preferred embodiments of the voice mail playbackfeatures of the present invention. This logic is invoked after thelistener has already initiated interactions with the enhanced VMS andacts to receive a particular stored voice mail message for thislistener, which the VMS has located. The VMS may either proceed througheach voice mail message for this particular listener sequentially, ormay provide a means for the listener to request processing of individualmessages, using prior art techniques. In either case, the features ofthe present invention allow the listener to process his voice mailmessages more quickly and more efficiently. (Note that in the lattercase, it is assumed that the means for selecting a message provides onlyan announcement of message sequence numbers, or perhaps of the phonenumber from which the message was delivered and its registered owner.The ability to skim the actual content of the messages by subject or tonavigate messages based on topics or other special indicators, asdisclosed herein, is beyond the scope of the prior art techniques.)

[0047] The logic in FIG. 2 assumes that the enhanced VMS supportsbookmarks that provide for message segmenting (such as the change-topicbookmarks described above) as well as special tagged fields (i.e. thespecial indicator types which have been described, such as callbacknumbers). This logic therefore begins the processing of a voice mailmessage at Block 200 with the VMS announcing the number of segments andthe number of tagged fields which have been stored for this particularmessage. The announcement may be spoken to the listener, or conveyed inanother manner (such as transmitting a numerical indicator or othervalue for display on the listener's cell phone or other equipment). Thisannouncement gives the listener a sense of the topics to be covered, ina similar manner to how a person viewing her e-mail gets a sense of themessage by seeing the paragraph layout. In some preferred embodiments,an array or similar data structure is used for storing bookmarks. Inthese embodiments, the number of segments and tagged fields may bedetermined, for example, using a software function that obtains thenumber of elements in the array. In other embodiments, the segmentmarkers and tags may appear in-line within the message, in which casethe VMS preferably processes the message to count the number of segmentsand tags. (This counting may be done as the message is being spoken andrecorded, or in a batch mode after the message is recorded, or as themessage is accessed for playback.)

[0048] At Block 202, the VMS prompts the listener to see what action hewould like to take for this stored message. Block 204 then checks to seewhich option was selected. A representative set of options is shown inthe table in FIG. 3A. As shown therein, the listener may choose tolisten to the entire message (as in a prior art VMS); listen to aparticular segment; access the tagged fields for the message; or exit.Representative command sequences are also shown in FIG. 3A, by way ofexample, that may be used in response to the prompting of the VMS. (Aswill be obvious, the selections shown in FIGS. 3A through 3D, as well asthe commands that may be used to request each of these selections, areintended merely as examples.)

[0049] If the listener chooses the exit option (using the response “99”in the example), then the processing in FIG. 2A for this voice mailmessage ends. If the listener chooses to hear a particular segment ofthe message (using the response “#n”, where the value of “n” is a numbercorresponding to the requested segment), control transfers to Block 206where this “n-th” segment is played. The listener is then prompted(Block 208) for his next action on this segment. Control then transfersto Block 220 of FIG. 2B, where a test is made to see which action thelistener requested for this segment. Representative choices are shown inFIG. 3B. If the listener chooses to delete the segment (option 1), thenat Block 224 that segment is deleted from the stored message. If thelistener chooses to save the segment (option 2), then at Block 226 thatsegment is saved (for example, for further reference or furtherprocessing). If the listener chooses to forward the segment (option 4),then at Block 222 that segment is forwarded to a third party. (Thedestination phone number to use for this purpose is preferably obtainedfrom the listener or from other means, using techniques which do notform part of the present invention and which are not shown in FIG. 2B.)After operation of Blocks 222, 224, or 226, or when the listener selectsto continue (option 3), control returns to Block 202 of FIG. 2A toenable the listener to continue processing this voice mail message.(Alternatively, an implementation of the present invention may enablecontrol to return to Block 208 of FIG. 2A after Blocks 222, 224, or 226,in order to accept additional segment-related requests from thelistener; in this case, selecting “continue” enables the listener toreturn to the mainline processing at Block 202.)

[0050] Returning now to Block 204 of FIG. 2A, if the listener chooses toaccess a particular tagged field of the message (using the response“*m”, where the value of “m” is a number corresponding to the requestedtagged field), then at Block 210 he is prompted for the particular typeof action he would like to perform on this “m-th” tagged field. Thetable in FIG. 3D provides representative examples of selections that maybe provided. Control then transfers to Block 230 of FIG. 2C, whichchecks to see which option the listener chose. If he chooses to listento the tagged field (option 1), then its contents are played (Block234). If he chooses to forward the contents of this tagged field (option4), then the contents are forwarded (Block 232) to a third party. (Seethe discussion of a third party above, with reference to Block 222 ofFIG. 2B.) Or, other appropriate actions may be provided, as shown atBlock 238 (in response to option 2). The type of other actions, and themanner of carrying out such other actions, may depend on the type oftagged fields supported in a particular implementation.

[0051] One use of tagged fields may be to mark certain message contentas being confidential or otherwise protected. When this feature is used,the caller preferably identifies the content to be protected at the timeof leaving (i.e. speaking) that part of the voice mail message. In thiscase, it may be desirable to inhibit the listener's use of forwardingfor this segment (not illustrated in the segment processing logic ofFIG. 2C). Optionally, an implementation of the present invention mayprovide a similar protection function to be used by the listener, where(for example) the listener may save or mark message segments and/ortagged fields with “do not forward” attributes. This type of specialfeatures may be supported for use by callers or listeners, or both ifdesired. Furthermore, when supported, the feature may be implemented asa (standalone) special tagged field, or it may be supported as anadditional indicator that may be associated with an entire message, withindividual message segments, and/or with other tagged fields. It will beobvious to one of skill in the art how these optional features may beadded to the logic of the FIG. 2. (Note that providing functionality toenforce such functions as “do not forward” is optional. Suchfunctionality may be added to the present invention using techniqueswhich are known in the art.)

[0052] After operation of Blocks 232, 234, or 236, or when the listenerselects to continue (option 3), control returns to Block 202 of FIG. 2Ato enable the listener to continue processing this voice mail message.(Alternatively, an implementation of the present invention may enablecontrol to return to Block 210 of FIG. 2A after Blocks 232, 234, or 236,in order to accept tagged field requests from the listener; in thiscase, selecting “continue” enables the listener to return to themainline processing at Block 202.)

[0053] Referring again to Block 204 of FIG. 2A, if the listener choosesto play the entire message (using response “#0”), then control transfersto Block 212 where the message is played in its entirety. When taggedfield bookmarks and/or topic change bookmarks are embedded in-line in astored message, then this playback preferably comprises providing thelistener with an audible indication of each bookmark. For example, aspoken phrase “topic is changing” may be inserted into the caller'svoice message, or a phrase such as “callback telephone number follows”may be inserted. Similarly, when bookmarks are stored as metadata, themetadata processing may include providing an audible indication,announcement, or visual indication during playback of the message. As analternative to (or in addition to) audibly announcing the bookmark,audio cues may be incorporated in with the message playback (e.g. asbackground sound), where a change in the audio cue signals to thelistener that a bookmarked field is being played. Use of audio cues withthe present invention is discussed in more detail below.

[0054] Upon completing the playback, the listener is prompted for hisnext action (Block 214), after which control reaches Block 240 of FIG.2D. The table in FIG. 3C provides representative examples of the actionsthat may be performed on complete messages. Block 240 checks to see whatnext action was selected. If the listener chooses to delete the entiremessage (option 1), then it is deleted (Block 244). If he chooses toforward the message (option 4), then the entire message is forwarded(Block 242) to a third party. (See the discussion of a third partyabove, with reference to Block 222 of FIG. 2B.) If the listener choosesto save the entire message (option 2), then it is saved (Block 246) forlater processing or other purposes. After operation of Blocks 242, 244,or 246, or when the listener selects to continue (option 3), controlreturns to Block 202 of FIG. 2A to enable the listener to continueprocessing this voice mail message. Alternatively, an implementation ofthe present invention may enable control to return to Block 214 of FIG.2A after Blocks 242, 244, or 246, in order to accept additional requestsfrom the listener which apply to the entire message; in this case,selecting “continue” enables the listener to return to the mainlineprocessing at Block 202.)

[0055] The listener may iterate through the logic of FIGS. 2A-2D anumber of times, if desired. Upon finishing with this message, thelistener preferably chooses a selection such as “99”, as stated above.This selection may signal the VMS to proceed to the listener's nextstored message, or (if this is the last message) to stop processingmessages for this listener. A particular implementation of the presentinvention may also provide a choice that enables the listener todirectly exit the voice mail system at this point; or, a higher-levelmenu may be used to provide that option.

[0056] In another preferred embodiment not illustrated by the figures,the listener may be permitted to play back the message, and barge inwith control requests. That is, even though the VMS may not prompt thelistener for command responses, the listener may interrupt the messageat any point by keying a code (e.g. *) and either in response to aprompt, or without further prompting, select an action to be taken. Suchactions may include skipping the current segment, deleting the currentsegment, proceeding to the next confidential segment, or any othercommand provided by the VMS. A barge-in feature is well known in the artof VMS, and is used in existing systems to perform such actions asskipping to the end of a message.

[0057] If KAS indicators for degrees of importance are supported formessage segments, then the VMS may prompt the listener as to whether hewould like to listen to (or act upon) segments of one particularimportance level. Furthermore, the VMS may announce the degrees whichhave been used for the segments of a particular message. The listenermay choose to listen to only the most important segments of each messageor to segments of particular importance levels and so forth. While thesefeatures have not been illustrated in FIG. 2, it will be obvious to oneof skill in the art how FIG. 2 may be adapted for this purpose.

[0058] Turning now to FIG. 4, a histogram is depicted which indicatesgraphically the effect of segmenting a voice mail message. In thisexample, a stored voice mail message has been divided into 5 segments,and each segment has some unique duration of message playback. Ratherthan listening to the entire message in sequence, as in the prior art,individual ones of the segments may be played back (or otherwiseaccessed or acted upon), providing a more flexible and more efficienttechnique for working with voice mail messages than is available in theprior art.

[0059]FIGS. 5A through 5G depict examples of data structures that may beused by an implementation of the present invention. As will be obvious,these are merely one format in which the information may be stored. (Inparticular, while the data structures are shown as using arrays, is forpurposes of illustration only; alternatively, linked lists or othersimilar structures may be used.)

[0060]FIG. 5A illustrates a data structure 500 that may be used toprocess and/or store voice mail segments which have tagged fields, whereinformation about the tagged fields is stored separately from themessage contents as metadata (while the contents of the tagged fieldsare preferably stored in-line within the message). In preferredembodiments, the tagged fields are stored in-line within the message aswell. (In this manner, the tagged fields may be efficiently accessedduring an in-order playback of the message, and also may be very quicklyretrieved by indexing the separate array if necessary—e.g. if thelistener requests to perform actions selectively using the taggedfields.) Each message may comprise some number of message segments,where the message is stored in “vmail_array” and the segments are storedas elements of the array (see 504). The contents of “vmail_array” (aswell as the information in the structures of FIGS. 5B through 5G) willpreferably be stored in temporary storage while processing a particularmessage and accessing its stored elements using constructs such as thepointers shown in the figures. In addition, information for each messageis preferably stored in some persistent data store such as a database,file structure on a disk, flash, etc. (When storing this information inpersistent storage, the pointers to files are preferably replaced byfile names or other indicators of the location of the referencedinformation.)

[0061] As shown at 503, each “vmail_segment” preferably comprises (1) apointer to a location (such as a file) in which the data for thissegment of the voice mail message is stored (alternatively, the contentcould be stored in-line, rather than in a separate location), and (2) anarray of tagged field information. The pointer may point to a filestored in “.wav” format, or any other appropriate format. The taggedfield information, as shown at 502, preferably comprises (1) a typeindicator, which may be numeric, to indicate whether this is a phonenumber, an e-mail address which the caller has provided for respondingto the message or which pertains to the message content, a URL, etc.,and (2) a pointer to a location where the contents of the tagged fieldare stored (alternatively, the content could be stored in-line, ratherthan in a separate location). An upper limit on the size of the taggedfield array and the segment array is shown at 501 for purposes ofillustration.

[0062] The segments of a message may be processed (for example, duringplayback or when preprocessing for later playback) using an in-ordertraversal of the arrays shown in the data structures of FIGS. 5A through5G. Or, the arrays used to store information for each segment may beindexed to selectively locate a particular segment.

[0063]FIG. 5B illustrates a data structure 510 that may be used toprocess and/or store voice mail segments which have tagged fields, whereinformation about the tagged fields is stored separately from themessage as metadata but the tagged field contents are stored in themessage. In this example, the tagged field contents are accessed usingan offset calculation approach. This structure 510 is identical to thestructure 500 of FIG. 5A, except in the definition of “tagged_field”512. In the approach of FIG. 5B, each tagged field is stored with (1) atype indicator, as described for FIG. 5A, (2) an offset specifying thelocation within the “data_loc” of “vmail_segment” 513 where the data forthis tagged field begins, and (3) a length that is used along with thestarting offset to determine where the data for the tagged field ends.

[0064] The data structure 520 illustrated in FIG. 5C may be used whenbookmarks are stored in-line within the voice mail message (perhaps as aspoken interpretation of the bookmark, for example, as discussed above).Preferably, this structure 520 comprises a pointer to a location (see521), such as a file on disk, where all of the content for a particularmessage is stored. This file would then be searched to determine thesegments, tagged fields, and so forth.

[0065] The data structure 530 illustrated in FIG. 5D may be used whenbookmarks are used to segment or tag voice mail messages, and pointersto those segments or tags are stored in an array. If an indicator of thebookmark type (which is preferably stored in-line) is also stored in themessage, then an interpretation of the bookmark may be provided (such asan announcement to the listener); otherwise, when the bookmark type isnot stored in the message with each segment then semantic interpretationof the indicator type is not known (as discussed above). Preferably,this structure 530 comprises an array of a fixed maximum length (see 531and 532), which is stored in temporary or persistent storage of sometype, where the array elements comprise pointers to files which containthe data for each identified part of the voice mail message (or pointersto locations within a single file, which has not been illustrated inFIG. 5D).

[0066]FIG. 5E illustrates a data structure 540 which may be used forvoice mail messages which have both tagged fields and separateindicators of special types of tagged fields. Each voice mail messagecomprises an instance of “vmail_msg_struct” 544, which in this examplecontains separate pointers to locations where the special tagged fields(i.e. the caller's name and callback phone number) are stored, and anembedded array structure used for processing the message contents. Thisapproach assumes that the contents of the special tagged fields havebeen explicitly obtained or identified (or, alternatively, the pointersmay be set to null to indicate an absence of such information); thisinformation may also appear in-line within the message content.Additional special tagged fields may be similarly stored in an analogousmanner (or special tagged fields may alternatively be stored in asimilar manner to the other tagged fields). Each segment of the messagepreferably uses the structure “vmail_segment” 543, which comprises apointer to a location where the structure's content is stored and anarray of tagged field information (where the tagged field information isdefined at 542). An upper bound on the array sizes is preferably fixedas shown at 541. Refer to FIG. 5A above for a discussion of the taggedfield information and the “vmail_segment” information, which is used inan analogous manner for FIG. 5E.

[0067]FIG. 5F illustrates a data structure 550 that may be used forvoice mail messages that have special types of tagged fields identified,but do not have other tagged fields. As shown at 552, the data structurefor such messages preferably comprises explicit pointers to the contentsof each of the special tagged fields (in the example, the caller's nameand callback phone number, as well as the desired callback time), alongwith a pointer to a file which stores an array of segments that comprisethe in-line content of the voice message. (This special tagged fieldinformation may also be stored in-line within the segments of themessage.) An upper limit is preferably placed on the size of this array,as shown at 551.

[0068]FIG. 5G illustrates a data structure 560 that may be used forvoice mail messages that have importance levels associated with segmentsas a special type of tagged field. As shown at 563, the data structurefor such messages preferably comprises an array containing entries foreach segment, where an upper limit shown at 561 is placed on the numberof such entries. Each entry, shown at 562 using the structure“vmail_segment”, preferably comprises an integer value for theimportance level of this segment and a pointer to a location where thesegment content is stored (although alternatively, the content could bestored in-line within the array element).

[0069] Note that the voice mail system may employ a database to containthe voice messages and/or their pertinent information, and the structureof each message and message segment as well as the element types usedtherein may therefore vary from what is shown in FIGS. 5A through5G—although the basic stored information is preferably the same.

[0070] According to an optional aspect of the present invention, audiocues can be used to provide additional contextual information while asegmented message or a message with tagged fields is being played to alistener. Such cues may be musical (tunes, for example). Or, they may benatural sounds, such as a birdsong, ocean waves, etc. As one example,audio cues can be used to indicate the degree of importance of themessage segment. A background hum, incorporated in with the audio streamresulting from the translation, might indicate importance, with higherpitches indicating more important segments and lower pitches indicatesless important. As another approach, the pitch or volume of the voiceused for the audio rendering might change to indicate that the segmentimportance varies. Or, a background audio cue might change to acompletely different sound while message segments of differentimportance are being rendered. Audio cues can also be provided forindicating information other than the relative importance of a messagesegment. As an example, the sound of a ringing phone might be used as anaudio cue while a message segment tagged as providing a callback numberis played to the listener. Or, the VMS might associate different audiocues with each segment of a delineated message (which provides, forexample, for playing a different audio cue per topic). As analternative, the VMS may simply alternate between two audio cues, withadjacent message segments each having one of the cues. Upon playback ofthe message to the listener, the audio cues are preferably incorporatedin with the spoken message. The association of the audio cues withsections of the message may be done as the message is retrieved forplayback (in which case the VMS may perform the incorporating, or it maybe done by the listener's telephone equipment, or perhaps by thetelephone company); or, the association may be done prior to retrieval,for example by the VMS evaluating its stored messages to determine thosewhich make use of audio cues and then processing those stored messages.

[0071] The related invention titled “Selectable Audio and MixedBackground Sound for Voice Messaging System” contains a thoroughdiscussion of use of background sounds, and how such sounds may beselected, located, and processed. Refer to this related invention formore information about options and techniques that may be used for audiocues of the present invention. Note that this related invention is notdirected toward inserting an audio cue or sound in-line as messagecontent while a message is being rendered (e.g. a giggle sound in placeof a smiley-face emoticon), although this in-line insertion approach foraudio cues may be used with the present invention to enhance voice mailmessages. Or, the present invention may incorporate an audio cue asadditional background sound for a voice mail message that is beingrendered—or for some part of a message that is being rendered.

[0072] U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,840, entitled “Voice Mail Replay CommandSystem”, teaches a technique whereby a caller leaves a voice mailmessage, and the called party can embed answers within this message andreturn it to the caller. However, there is no teaching therein of thecaller explicitly delineating message segments or of independentlyperforming actions on partial voice mail messages.

[0073] U.S. Pat. No. 5,983,187, entitled “Speech Data Storage OrganizingSystem using Form Field Indicators” teaches a technique for capturingand storing speech data records according to “form field indicators”,which are elements provided by the speaker (such as a silence of apredetermined length, or pressing a button) to segment a voice datarecording. Form field indicators correspond to information in the speechdata (see column 4, lines 51-56), and serve as markers or anchors to beused when searching the speech data for a “form field”. A form field isa field corresponding to a form-oriented application. For example, aphone book application may comprise form fields of name, phone number,and comment. Using the disclosed technique, the user pauses or otherwiseinserts a marker into his speech and speaks a keyword corresponding toone of a set of form fields. The system later processes the speechstream by locating the marker and then searching the spoken phonemes ofthe following speech data for any of a set of predetermined keywords.Upon finding a phoneme that matches a keyword known to the system, thespeech information following that phoneme (up to the point where thenext form field indicator is found) is stored into the correspondingform field. (See column 3, lines 13-25; lines 32-34; lines 43-45; andlines 53-64, as well as column 4, lines 12-20.) In this manner, if theuser says “My phone number is 800-555-1212” and the phrase “phone numberis” has been predefined as a keyword phrase, the system will detect the“phone number is” keyword phrase and store the spoken information“800-555-1212” which follows it into the phone book application's phonenumber field. Use of form field indicators is stated as being optional,provided that voice recognition is capable of detecting the phonemes ofthe spoken keyword phrase which introduces the form field contentwithout use of an anchor. (See column 4, lines 44-46.) However, thedisclosed techniques do not teach features of the present inventionincluding performing actions on partial voice mail messages; navigationof voice mail messages by a listener wherein (for example) the listenerskims from one bookmark to another; using bookmarks to highlightimportant passages within a voice mail message; announcing informationabout the stored content of a voice mail message; disambiguating topicsusing freeform bookmarks; or using audio cues as background sound toprovide an audible representation of contextual information duringplayback to a listener.

[0074] U.S. Pat. No. 5,742,736, entitled “Device for Managing Voice DataAutomatically Linking Marked Message Segments to CorrespondingApplications” teaches a technique for enabling a user to associatespeech with a marker type, where the marker type is already associatedwith an application. A previously-stored voice message (or other type ofvoice data) is analyzed by a listener, using either a visualrepresentation (e.g. a graphical display such as a line or bar) of avoice message that is being spoken or an audio playback thereof. Theuser selects from among a set of predefined markers, and associates amarker with a portion of the speech (e.g. by dragging a marker icon inthe visual display, or pressing keys while hearing a message played). Anapplication corresponds to each marker, and the user's associationautomatically causes a linking between the marked speech and storage forthe application. For example, if the user determines which part of avisual display corresponds to a recorded phone number, he may drag aphone icon to that segment, and the corresponding stored speech is thenlinked with the storage structure of a phone book application. In thismanner, the stored speech is more easily integrated into existingapplications. (See column 4, lines 38-54, as well as column 4, line64-column 5, line 3.) The present invention, on the other hand, is notdirected toward marking a message while it is being played to thelistener, but rather while it is being left by the speaker. In otherwords, the speaker creates the bookmarks of the present invention, whilea listener marks or flags portions of messages in the prior artinvention. Furthermore, the present invention does not requireapplications to be associated with bookmarks: the speaker will typicallyhave no idea of the applications available to the listener, or of theapplications with which the listener might like to associate theinformation from a voice mail message. Accordingly, the presentinvention is not directed at linking information from a voice mailmessage into the data structure used by an associated application.

[0075] U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,407, entitled “Method and Apparatus forManaging Information”, teaches a technique for recording, categorizing,organizing, managing, and retrieving written and speech information.This patent teaches an integrated system which provides a graphical userinterface to allow a personal computer or tablet user to manage audiodata obtained from a meeting or other interaction. The disclosedtechnique is intended to allow a user (preferably, with a visualinterface) to organize audio data; it does not teach bookmarking a voicemail message by the speaker.

[0076] As has been demonstrated, the present invention providesadvantageous techniques to alleviate disadvantages of distancecommunication, for example by delineating topics or other significantinformation in voice mail messages, and for enabling listeners of voicemail messages to more efficiently navigate and process their messages.Once the teachings of the present invention are known, bookmarks invoice mail messages may be used advantageously in a myriad of ways toenhance distance communications.

[0077] As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art, embodiments ofthe present invention may be provided as methods, systems, or computerprogram products. Accordingly, the present invention may take the formof an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment oran embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, thepresent invention may take the form of a computer program product whichis embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, butnot limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and so forth)having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

[0078] The present invention has been described with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or flow diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or flow diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or flows in the flow diagrams, can beimplemented by computer program instructions. These computer programinstructions may be provided to a processor of a general purposecomputer, special purpose computer, embedded processor or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such thatthe instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer orother programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions specified in the flowchart and/or flowdiagram block(s) or flow(s).

[0079] These computer program instructions may also be stored in acomputer-readable memory that can direct a computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the function specified in the flowchart and/or flowdiagram block(s) or flow(s).

[0080] The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause aseries of operational steps to be performed on the computer or otherprogrammable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process suchthat the instructions which execute on the computer or otherprogrammable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functionsspecified in the flowchart and/or flow diagram block(s) or flow(s).Furthermore, the instructions may be executed by more than one computeror data processing apparatus, such that some aspects of the presentinvention operate (for example) at a VMS while other aspects operate thecaller's or listener's telephone equipment, or elsewhere.

[0081] While preferred embodiments of the present invention have beendescribed, additional variations and modifications in those embodimentsmay occur to those skilled in the art once they learn of the basicinventive concepts. Therefore, it is intended that the appended claimsshall be construed to include both the preferred embodiments and allsuch variations and modifications as fall within the spirit and scope ofthe invention.

We claim:
 1. A method of enhancing voice mail messages by providing oneor more bookmarks for a voice mail message left by a caller.
 2. Themethod according to claim 1, further comprising the step of creating abookmarked message from the voice mail message and the associatedbookmarks.
 3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising thestep of playing the bookmarked message to a listener.
 4. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein selected ones of the bookmarks segment thevoice mail message according to one or more topics.
 5. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein selected ones of the bookmarks are used tomark one or more segments of the voice mail message as having one ormore different degrees of importance.
 6. The method according to claim5, wherein a default degree of importance is associated with segmentsnot otherwise marked.
 7. The method according to claim 1, whereinselected ones of the bookmarks correspond to one or more special typesof information in the voice mail message.
 8. The method according toclaim 7, wherein at least one of the special types of information is acallback telephone number for the caller.
 9. The method according toclaim 7 or claim 8, wherein at least one of the special types ofinformation is a callback time and/or date to use when responding to thevoice mail message.
 10. The method according to claim 7, wherein atleast one of the special types of information is a name of the caller.11. The method according to claim 7, wherein at least one of the specialtypes of information is a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
 12. The methodaccording to claim 7, wherein at least one of the special types ofinformation is an e-mail address.
 13. The method according to claim 7,wherein at least one of the special types of information is a protectionor confidentiality indicator.
 14. The method according to claim 2 orclaim 3, further comprising the step of using the bookmarks to performactions selectively on one or more segments of the voice mail message.15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the selected segments areassociated with a topic of the voice mail message.
 16. The methodaccording to claim 14, wherein the selected segments have one or moredifferent degrees of importance.
 17. The method according to claim 14,wherein the selected segments are associated with one or more specialtypes of information in the voice mail message.
 18. The method accordingto claim 14, wherein the actions comprise one or more of saving,deleting, forwarding, listening, skipping, or repeating the one or moresegments.
 19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the actionsfurther comprise marking a selected segment as protected orconfidential.
 20. The method according to claim 19, further comprisingforwarding the segment marked as protected or confidential to anotherparty.
 21. The method according to claim 17, wherein at least one of thespecial types of information comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL)and where at least one of the actions comprises establishing aconnection to the URL.
 22. The method according to claim 2, wherein thecreating step further comprises storing the bookmarks and the voice mailmessage separately as the bookmarked message.
 23. The method accordingto claim 2, wherein the creating step further comprises storing thebookmarks and the voice mail message intermingled as the bookmarkedmessage.
 24. The method according to claim 3, further comprising thestep of announcing a number of the bookmarked segments in the voice mailmessage.
 25. The method according to claim 5, further comprising thestep of announcing the different degrees of importance in the voice mailmessage.
 26. The method according to claim 5, further comprising thestep of announcing a number of the segments in the different degrees ofimportance.
 27. The method according to claim 7, further comprising thestep of announcing the special types of information in the voice mailmessage.
 28. The method according to claim 7, wherein particular ones ofthe special types of information are required, and further comprisingthe step of prompting the caller to provide input for each particularone for which no bookmark is otherwise provided.
 29. The methodaccording to claim 2, further comprising the step of associating one ormore audio cues with one or more bookmarks of the voice mail message.30. The method according to claim 29, further comprising the steps of:playing the bookmarked message to a listener; and incorporating the oneor more associated audio cues along with respective portions of thevoice mail message corresponding to the one or more bookmarks.
 31. Themethod according to claim 30, wherein the step of incorporating the oneor more associated audio cues further comprises incorporating eachassociated audio cue with its respective portion of the voice mailmessage.
 32. The method according to claim 30, wherein the step ofincorporating the one or more associated audio cues further comprisesincorporating each associated audio cue in-line with its respectiveportion of the voice mail message.
 33. A system for enhancing voice mailmessages, comprising: means for leaving a voice mail message by acaller; and means for providing one or more bookmarks for the voice mailmessage.
 34. The system according to claim 33, further comprising meansfor creating a bookmarked message from the voice mail message and theassociated bookmarks.
 35. The system according to claim 34, furthercomprising means for playing the bookmarked message to a listener. 36.The system according to claim 33, wherein selected ones of the bookmarkssegment the voice mail message according to one or more topics.
 37. Thesystem according to claim 33, wherein selected ones of the bookmarkscorrespond to one or more special types of information in the voice mailmessage.
 38. The system according to claim 37, wherein the special typesof information comprise one or more of: (1) a callback telephone numberfor the caller; (2) a callback time at which to respond to the voicemail message; and/or (3) a callback date on which to respond to thevoice mail message.
 39. The system according to claim 37, wherein atleast one of the special types of information is a Uniform ResourceLocator (URL).
 40. The system according to claim 37, wherein at leastone of the special types of information is a protection orconfidentiality indicator.
 41. The system according to claim 34, furthercomprising means for using the selected bookmarks to perform actionsselectively on one or more segments of the voice mail message.
 42. Thesystem according to claim 41, wherein the selected segments areassociated with a topic of the voice mail message.
 43. The systemaccording to claim 41, wherein the selected segments have one or moredifferent degrees of importance.
 44. The system according to claim 41,wherein the actions comprise one or more of saving, deleting,forwarding, listening, skipping, or repeating the one or more segments.45. The system according to claim 44, wherein the actions furthercomprise marking a selected segment as protected or confidential. 46.The system according to claim 45, further comprising forwarding themarked segment to another party.
 47. The system according to claim 41,wherein the selected segments are associated with one or more specialtypes of information in the voice mail message.
 48. The system accordingto claim 47, wherein at least one of the special types of informationcomprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and where at least one of theactions comprises establishing a connection to the URL.
 49. The systemaccording to claim 35, further comprising means for announcing a numberof the bookmarked segments in the voice mail message.
 50. The systemaccording to claim 43, further comprising means for announcing thedifferent degrees of importance in the voice mail message.
 51. Thesystem according to claim 37, further comprising means for announcingthe special types of information in the voice mail message.
 52. Themethod according to claim 37, wherein particular ones of the specialtypes of information are required, and further comprising means forprompting the caller to provide input for each particular one for whichno bookmark is otherwise provided.
 53. The system according to claim 34,further comprising means for associating one or more audio cues with oneor more bookmarks of the voice mail message.
 54. The system according toclaim 53, further comprising: means for playing the bookmarked messageto a listener; and means for incorporating the one or more associatedaudio cues along with respective portions of the voice mail messagecorresponding to the one or more bookmarks.
 55. The system according toclaim 54, wherein the means for incorporating the one or more associatedaudio cues further comprises means for incorporating each associatedaudio cue with its respective portion of the voice mail message.
 56. Thesystem according to claim 54, wherein the means for incorporating theone or more associated audio cues further comprises means forincorporating each associated audio cue in-line with its respectiveportion of the voice mail message.
 57. A computer program product forenhancing voice mail messages, the computer program product embodied onone or more computer-readable media and comprising: computer-readableprogram code means for providing one or more bookmarks for a voice mailmessage left by a caller; and computer-readable program code means forcreating a bookmarked message from the left voice mail message and theprovided bookmarks.
 58. The computer program product according to claim57, further comprising computer-readable program code means for playingthe created bookmarked message to a listener.
 59. The computer programproduct according to claim 57, wherein selected ones of the bookmarkssegment the voice mail message according to one or more topics.
 60. Thecomputer program product according to claim 57, wherein selected ones ofthe bookmarks are used to mark one or more segments of the voice mailmessage as having one or more different degrees of importance.
 61. Thecomputer program product according to claim 60, wherein a default degreeof importance is associated with segments not otherwise marked.
 62. Thecomputer program product according to claim 57, wherein selected ones ofthe bookmarks correspond to one or more special types of information inthe voice mail message.
 63. The computer program product according toclaim 62, wherein the special types of information comprise one or moreof (1) a callback telephone number for the caller; (2) a callback timeat which to respond to the voice mail message; and/or (3) a callbackdate on which to respond to the voice mail message.
 64. The computerprogram product according to claim 62, wherein at least one of thespecial types of information is a name of the caller.
 65. The computerprogram product according to claim 62, wherein at least one of thespecial types of information is an e-mail address.
 66. The computerprogram product according to claim 62, wherein at least one of thespecial types of information is a protection or confidentialityindicator.
 67. The computer program product according to claim 59,further comprising computer-readable program code means for using theselected bookmarks to navigate from one topic of the voice mail messageto another.
 68. The computer program product according to claim 58,further comprising computer-readable program code means for using thebookmarks to perform actions selectively on one or more segments of thevoice mail message.
 69. The computer program product according to claim68, wherein the selected segments are associated with a topic of thevoice mail message.
 70. The computer program product according to claim68, wherein the selected segments have one or more different degrees ofimportance.
 71. The computer program product according to claim 68,wherein the actions comprise one or more of: saving a particularsegment; deleting a particular segment; skipping a particular segment;forwarding a particular segment; listening to a particular segment;repeating playback of a particular segment; and marking a particularsegment as protected or confidential prior to forwarding the markedsegment to another party.
 72. The computer program product according toclaim 68, wherein the selected segments are associated with one or morespecial types of information in the voice mail message.
 73. The computerprogram product according to claim 72, wherein at least one of thespecial types of information comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL)and where at least one of the actions comprises establishing aconnection to the URL.
 74. The computer program product according toclaim 58, further comprising computer-readable program code means forannouncing a number of the bookmarked segments in the voice mailmessage.
 75. The computer program product according to claim 60, furthercomprising computer-readable program code means for announcing a numberof the segments in the different degrees of importance.
 76. The computerprogram product according to claim 62, further comprisingcomputer-readable program code means for announcing a number of thespecial types of information in the voice mail message.
 77. The computerprogram product according to claim 62, wherein particular ones of thespecial types of information are required, and further comprisingcomputer-readable program code means for prompting the caller to provideinput for each particular one for which no bookmark is otherwiseprovided.
 78. The computer program product according to claim 58,further comprising computer-readable program code means for associatingone or more audio cues with one or more bookmarks of the voice mailmessage.
 79. The computer program product according to claim 78, furthercomprising: computer-readable program code means for playing thebookmarked message to a listener, and computer-readable program codemeans for incorporating the one or more associated audio cues along withrespective portions of the voice mail message corresponding to the oneor more bookmarks.
 80. The computer program product according to claim79, wherein the computer-readable program code means for incorporatingthe one or more associated audio cues further comprisescomputer-readable program code means for incorporating each associatedaudio cue with its respective portion of the voice mail message.
 81. Thecomputer program product according to claim 79, wherein thecomputer-readable program code means for incorporating the one or moreassociated audio cues further comprises computer-readable program codemeans for incorporating each associated audio cue in-line with itsrespective portion of the voice mail message.